scholarly journals Ideology and Truth

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-39
Author(s):  
Krešimir Petković

The author argues that any discourse analysis, as well as other approaches in social sciences and humanities, cannot ultimately avoid the truth and ideology distinction. The first part of the article provides several glimpses at the Western philosophical tradition that preserves the value of truth. In the second part, an idea for political science, grounded in such a history of ideas, is sketched. After a brief discussion of what is ideology as opposed to truth, the author proposes a thesis about ideology, identity and power, and several heuristic ideas how to develop it. In the third part, he briefly provides examples from political and policy analysis that correspond to such a project. In the final part, he explains the importance of preserving the distinction between ideology and truth in the discursively postulated “post-truth” era. This combination of epistemology, science, analysis and teleology is reflected together in one political area of utmost importance for political science operating in the public sphere: the politics of naming.

2021 ◽  
pp. 026732312110614
Author(s):  
Slavko Splichal

The article discusses the reasons and conditions for the rise and fall of the popularity of the public sphere concept in scholarly discourse in four parts. The first part examines the peculiar circumstances of the emergence of the concept of the public sphere, and its rapid and widespread adoption in the social sciences. The second part discusses the complexity of the concept “Öffentlichkeit” and its English proxy “the public sphere,” and the contemporary critique of its ideological predispositions. The third part focuses on the liberalization and (operational) banalization of the concept. The final part suggests ways in which social scientists could respond critically to the challenges outlined earlier and reintegrate publicness, the public, and the public sphere into the analysis.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 899
Author(s):  
Ivan Kovačević ◽  
Miloš Milenković

The article analyzes the consequences of the reductionist application of criteria typical of the natural, mainly laboratory sciences, in the process of evaluation of the results of the work of researchers and institutions in all the other scientific disciplines, mainly in the field of social sciences and humanities, in the Republic of Serbia. As an example of this trend, the analysis focuses on the absurd criteria, currently in effect, for the conducting of PhD studies in the field of social sciences and humanities, which exclude the scientific books written by lecturers and only value articles published in journals. After this, the ignorance, misapprehensions, logical fallacies and interests which might be behind these criteria are analyzed. Special attention in the analysis is given to the reduction of global to fundamental. It is concluded that the application of the criteria currently in effect leads to the loss of interpretative sovereignty, which occurs when institutions, authors, referees and editors who are highly competent experts in regional and national issues are sacrificed in favor of foreign owners, institutions, authors, referees and editors that, by and large, possess less competence and expertise in regional and national issues, and have non-scientific interests and loyalties which don’t necessarily coincide with the interests of Serbian citizens. Finally, the consequences of the ongoing ethnocidal renunciation of scientific interpretative sovereignty are considered, especially the relinquishing of interpretations of history, identity and interconnected cultural issues and social problems to nonscientific discourses in Serbian society. Discourses which inevitably fill the empty room left in the public sphere by the ever-faster extinguishing of journals and publications in Serbian and the languages of ethnic minorities.


Author(s):  
Willeke Sandler

This introduction situates the book’s analysis of colonialist lobbying in the Third Reich within its historical and historiographical contexts. After a short background on the history of German overseas colonialism and advocacy for this empire in Germany, the introduction addresses the historiographical question of how to situate colonialism and National Socialism in German history. This chapter also explores how the activities of the colonialist movement—a group of non-Party organizations intervening publicly into political debates—can be situated within established understandings of Nazi control of the public sphere. The introduction ends with a description of the structure of the book.


2018 ◽  
pp. 7-16
Author(s):  
Anna Wolff-Powęska

The paper presents the thesis that the interdisciplinarity of political science as a science, open to the accomplishments in the field of social sciences and humanities enriches this disci- pline. On the one hand, the enormous expansion of knowledge enforces specialization. On the other hand, there is a constant exchange of thought and methodological experience that takes place for fear of becoming isolated. Globalization – the new quality of international life – forces us to continuously exceed the limits of traditional theoretical orientations. Scientific pluralism raises the question of who and when has the right to decide on the superiority of one scientific model over another. The present state of research into the status of political science allows us to observe that the research instruments of politics, the process of permanently changing the world, must be flexible. The history of the social sciences confirms the continu- ous interdependency of particular disciplines and acknowledges political science as an impor- tant link in the chain of evolution of science.


Author(s):  
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad

The Introduction outlines the various chapters. It then situates the question of ‘body’ in the modern Western philosophical tradition following Descartes, and argues that this leaves subsequent responses to come under one of three options: metaphysical dualism of body and subject; any anti-dualist reductionism; or the overcoming of the divide. Describing the Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty as a potent example of the third strategy, the Introduction then suggests his philosophy will function as foil to the ecological phenomenology developed and presented in the book. Moreover, one approach within the Western Phenomenological tradition, of treating phenomenology as a methodology for the clarification of experience (rather than the means to the determination of an ontology of the subject) is compared to the approach in this book. Since classical India, while understanding dualism, did not confront the challenge of Descartes (for better or for worse), its treatment of body follows a different trajectory.


1997 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Thomas

I am grateful to Håkan Karlsson for his thoughtful commentary on some of the issues concerning Heidegger and archaeology which were raised in a previous issue of this journal, and find myself fascinated by his project of a ‘contemplative archaeology’. However, one or two points of clarification could be made in relation to Karlsson's contribution. Firstly, as a number of authors have pointed out (e.g. Anderson 1966, 20; Olafson 1993), the gulf between Heidegger's early work and that which followed the Kehre may have been more apparent than real. While his focus may have shifted from the Being of one particular kind of being (Dasein) to a history of Being (Dreyfus 1992), the continuities in his thought are more striking. Throughout his career, Heidegger was concerned with the category of Being, and the way in which it had been passed over by the western philosophical tradition. It is important to note that in Being and time the analysis of Dasein essentially serves as an heuristic: the intention is to move from an understanding of the Being of one kind of being to that of Being in general. What complicates the issue is the very unusual structure of this specific kind of being, for Heidegger did not choose to begin his analysis with the Being of shoes or stones, but with a kind of creature which has a unique relationship with all other worldly entities. ‘Dasein’ serves as a kind of code for ‘human being’ which enables Heidegger to talk about the way in which human beings exist on earth, rather than becoming entangled in biological or psychological definitions of humanity. In this formulations, what is distinctive about human beings is that their own existence is an issue for them; Dasein cares, and this caring is fundamentally temporal.


1988 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 419-422
Author(s):  
James Schleifer

Roger Boesche, Chair of the Department of Political Science at Occidental College in Los Angeles, lias already written several thoughtful articles about Tocqueville, each marked by clarity of thought and expression: ’The Prison: Tocqueville’s Model for Despotism,” Western Political Quarterly 33 (December 1980):550-63; “The Strange Liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville,” History of Political Thought 2 (Winter 1981): 495-524; “Why Could Tocqueville Predict So Well?” Political Theory 11 (February 1983): 79-104; “Tocqueville and Le Commerce’. A Newspaper Expressing His Unusual Liberalism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 44 (April-June 1983): 277-92; and “Hedonism and Nihilism: The Predictions of Tocqueville and Nietzsche,” The Tocqueville Review 8 (1986/87): 165-84.


2021 ◽  

This volume examines Arnold Gehlen’s theory of the state from his philosophy of the state in the 1920s via his political and cultural anthropology to his impressive critique of the post-war welfare state. The systematic analyses the book contains by leading scholars in the social sciences and the humanities examine the interplay between the theory and history of the state with reference to the broader context of the history of ideas. Students and researchers as well as other readers interested in this subject will find this book offers an informative overview of how one of the most wide-ranging and profound thinkers of the twentieth century understands the state. With contributions by Oliver Agard, Heike Delitz, Joachim Fischer, Andreas Höntsch, Tim Huyeng, Rastko Jovanov, Frank Kannetzky, Christine Magerski, Zeljko Radinkovic, Karl-Siegbert Rehberg and Christian Steuerwald.


2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 62-67
Author(s):  
Dijana Alic

On 6 april 1992, the european union (eu) recognised bosnia and hercegovina as a new independent state, no longer a part of the socialist federal republic of Yugoslavia. The event marked the start of the siege of sarajevo, which lasted nearly four years, until late february 1996. It became the longest siege in the history of modern warfare, outlasting the leningrad enclosure by a year. During its 1425 days, more than 11,500 people were killed. The attacks left a trail of destruction across the city, which began to transform it in ways not experienced before. This paper explores how the physical transformation of sarajevo affected the ways in which meaning and significance were assigned to its built fabric. I argue that the changes imposed by war and the daily destruction of the city challenged long-established relationships between the built fabric and those who inhabited the city, introducing new modes of thinking and interpreting the city. Loosely placing the discussion within the framework of ‘Thirdspace', established by urban theorist and cultural geographer edward soja, i discuss the relationship that emerged between the historicality, sociality and spatiality of war-torn sarajevo. Whether responding to the impacts of physical destruction or dramatic social change, the nexus of time, space and being shows that the concept of spatiality is essential to comprehending the world and to adjusting to and resisting the impact of extraordinary circumstances. Recognising the continuation of daily life as essential to survival sheds light on processes of renewal and change in a war-affected landscape. These shattered urban spaces also show the ways in which people make a sense of place in relation to specific socio-historical environments and political contexts.


1992 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-171
Author(s):  
John Nerone

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